"Pay my respects to grace and virtue. Send my condolences to good."

[greygirlbeast]

Too much sleep last night, and how often do I get to say that? I'm groggy, but from sleep, not insomnia.

Days off, I end up with all this random crap, instead of actual journal entries. Day like these, my journal entries must consist of the random crap that floats through my days, or they will consist of nothing at all. To wit:

Yesterday, I read back over "Ode to Edvard Munch," before sending it off to the editor of By Blood We Live, a vampire anthology from Night Shade Books that will be reprinting the story. Reading it again, I realized (again) that sometime between the writing of Low Red Moon and Frog Toes and Tentacles —— so between 2002 and 2005 —— I quite suddenly became a much better writer. I don't know how it happened. I didn't do it on purpose. I followed no conscious agenda of change. It just happened. My style was greatly pared down. My voice simplified. My descriptions became more precise. My dialog became sharper. I learned to do much more with much less. It seems to have just happened.

Also, yesterday, while reading through "Ode to Edvard Munch," Spooky found a royalty check for $300 tucked inside a comp copy of The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance. The check is dated August 18th, 2008. And this, kiddos, is why I have to have a keeper, and why I cannot manage my own finances. I wonder how many checks I've mislaid over the years. A very small fortune, probably.

---

Friday evening, I was listening to WBRU, the college-rock station out of Brown University. The music's pretty good, but the DJs are insufferable. Anyway, Friday evening I heard two of them —— one male, one female —— trying to figure out what the word cretin means. Finally, after much debate, they achieved consensus on a definition. Cretin: a small, horned demon, sort of like an imp. And no, they were not trying to be funny. That much was obvious. And I thought, This is fucking irony.

---

Lots of "television" last night (which is to say, shows streamed via Spooky's laptop). The latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, "Someone to Watch Over Me," was very, very good, though I wish it could have ended on the scene with Starbuck at the piano, just after she played the bit of "All Along the Watchtower." I can't believe it's almost over. Well, it's not, really. The feature film is slated for a 2011 release date. We also watched a decent episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was good to get back to Cameron, though I can do without that horrid kid that plays John.

And after that, we played WoW, killing alien bugs in Silithus for the druids of Cenarion Circle, which just feels all sorts of wrong to Shaharrazad. Working for night elves, I mean. I've been sitting at Level 62 for...I have no idea. Let me check. Since February 19th, as it happens. I haven't been playing much WoW. And when I have, I've mostly been mining. Indeed, after giving Shah a second profession, mining. I discovered that I was enjoying "the mining game" much more than all that questing and leveling nonsense. Last night, my blue bar moved for the first time since the 19th, I guess. Anyway, the bugs in Silithus were so obviously modeled after the bugs in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997), it got me to wanting to see that ridiculous film again. So we stopped playing WoW and streamed it from Netflix. Quite an odd film, odder even than I remembered, though the creature effects have aged well.

---

I have resolved that I will now cease to read reviews of my writing. And I mean not only "reviews" (that is, readers "reviews" on Amazon, "reviews" in blogs, and so forth), but, also, actual, professional, published reviews. They almost always annoy me, even the positive ones. I cannot hope to make everyone happy. Hell, most times, I can't make me happy. Reading those reviews never changes the way I do what I do even in the least, with the exception of the review in Locus of The Dry Salvages that almost made me stop writing sf forever. So, I'm going to spare myself a lot of grief and stop reading all reviews of my work, period. No exceptions. Not if I can help it. So, please do not send me links to them online, or point me towards them, or whatever. I am cultivating disinterest and detachment. I am trimming away stress.

And I think that's all for now. It's warmish Outside, and Spooky says I can't stay in all day.

Comments

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

As Samuel Goldwyn said, 'Don't pay attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them.'

[papersteven.livejournal.com]

"...with the exception of the review in Locus of The Dry Salvages that almost made me stop writing sf forever."

*That* would be all sorts of wrong.

[hannahmia.livejournal.com]

Aww. Thats too bad I did a class asignment on Daughter of Hounds. =P

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

i can totally understand your lack of desire to read reviews of your work

however, it might be good if spooky or one of your other friends occasionally put a link-dump to reviews (especially good ones) somewhere for people who are casual readers of your work/journal but may not be well versed enough to buy a the new book without seeing what critics think (and then ignore those posts yourself)

[mellawyrden.livejournal.com]

The bugs in STARSHIP TROOPERS are beautiful. I love the flamethrower effect.. still breathtaking! I feel lucky to have seen this on the big screen when it came out.

Anyone who shat on THE DRY SALVAGES has no soul. I must say that it's one of my favourite books of all time, by anyone, ever. Reviews are too overshadowed by the ego of the reviewer (and who the hell are they?) for me to trust them. They tell me nothing of how I will respond to a work.

Re: Battlestar Galactica feature film

[sproggenfree.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the film is supposed to be based on the *original* 1979 series, not the re-imagined version. Which means it will most likely be heavily laden with LDS imagery, and have a *ugh* male Starbuck.

Check here (http://www.scifiscoop.com/news/rumor-of-a-battlestar-galactica-feature-film/) for details.

[tetzermetzger.livejournal.com]

apros to nothing, I was just remembering you saying something about you
had final thoughts to second life and wondering what they were.

But to kinda of tie things to the post you have made. I am glad you are not going to read the reviews anymore. These insulting hacks will never produce anything that I will enjoy reading, as much as I enjoy reading your stuff.

And of course you have improved, this is why I still keep reading. You have that Genius Novel in you that will make everyone realize what I have been saying this whole time. "Caitlin Kiernan is fucking fantastic."
(and there are very, very few authors I say that about. Let alone give books away to prove.)

[tarots.livejournal.com]

The Dry Savages was beautifully bleak. I loved it.

I am very happy that you refrained from stopping writing [sf].

I quite enjoy it when an author tries a different voice or mood,
even when it doesn't work for me. People can be so viscous and fickle.

College DJs

[kongjie.livejournal.com]

Having been a college dj, I can say with full confidence that listening to them is unbearable, myself included. The most important lesson I learned was to not talk about your mistakes. Because no one paid attention to your mistake until you spent 5 minutes talking about it.

If you get someone with good taste in music who opens you up to things you haven't heard before, it's worth suffering through the amateurish blabber. On the rare occasion you'll be driving through an unfamiliar area and a radio scan turns up someone who not only plays great music but isn't annoying, too. That's a rare pleasure.

[whiskeychick.livejournal.com]

the vocal appreciation of your readers should speak with the most weight to the high quality of your writing and the awesome impact of your works.

"...trimming away stress..."

Ah, the golden goal.

[hannahmia.livejournal.com]

"Except the mass-market pb of Low Red Moon, which is light years better than that crappy cover they stuck on it."

I hate that cover. I just bought the book and had to go on ebay so I wouldn't end up with the mass market copy.